It has always been taboo for MPs to date staff, but the orange wave that brought a slate of young female politicians to Ottawa has changed the dating dynamic on Parliament Hill.

Rosane Doré Lefebvre, a 28-year-old Quebec NDP MP, is expecting a baby with her partner, George Soule, 32, a press secretary in the Opposition leader’s office. They kept the relationship quiet for a while, then got the party’s blessing for their continued romance—even though there are no specific rules mandating political staff or MPs seek approval to date within the NDP, or any other party for that matter. “Initially it was, ‘Okay, this thing happened,’ and then it became more serious. I spoke to the chief of staff. We wanted this to be more than just something that we hid and I didn’t want to do anything that would be a problem for the party,” Soule said during an interview in Doré Lefebvre’s office. “I think at the beginning I was a little bit nervous just in general about even dating an MP and what that would mean.”

Such relationships have been discouraged in the past because Parliament Hill has traditionally been dominated by older male MPs and young female staff members.

Soule and Doré Lefebvre said they have opened the floodgates in their party and joked that an orange baby wave could be next. “We were the trailblazers—people felt it was more comfortable: ‘Well if George and Rosane could do it, then, fine, we’re going for it,’ ” said Soule.

Soule and Doré Lefebvre began dating shortly after the 2011 election. They met when he helped her write her first statement in the House of Commons. Her due date is April 19, within days of the NDP convention.

The couple found out they were having a girl in early December, the same day the government approved the Nexen deal. Soule tweeted that the most important news that day was that they were expecting a daughter.

They have bought a house near her riding office in Laval but have no marriage plans at this stage. “There are no rings,” she laughed. “So many things happened since my election. I met George. I’m so lucky and so happy right now.”

She plans on returning to work a few weeks after giving birth so she can be in the House of Commons for spring votes. She is also restricted in the time she takes off: MPs do not pay Employment Insurance so they do not get maternity or paternity benefits. Soule will take paternity leave and will bring their baby to the House of Commons lobby so Doré Lefebvre can breastfeed.

Dating between staff and MPs is “a whole new thing,” said Soule. There are romances in other parties but they are rare. James Moore, the thirtysomething Conservative MP and cabinet minister, married Courtney Payne, a communications specialist for the Prime Minister, last December. Moore’s announcement was greeted with congratulations from his caucus but it is understood the Prime Minister is not a fan of MPs dating staff members or MPs dating other MPs (see Peter Mackay and Belinda Stronach, or Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer). One party insider said: “But not unlike many a parent, you can’t choose who your kids date.”

Tim Powers, a lobbyist in Ottawa, said relationships on the Hill are inevitably a matter of proximity, and the new crop of young MPs will result in more dating between politicians and staff. “Given the nature of the Ottawa political life, the people it attracts, throw in a bit of human nature, and one of its natural extensions is younger MPs dating staff members of a similar age. It gives a parliamentary filibuster new meaning.”

Tom Mulcair is the most experienced opposition leader Stephen Harper has faced. Between Quebec’s national assembly and the federal Parliament, he’s been in elected politics for 18 years. Unlike Paul Martin, who had been in Parliament for nearly as long, Mulcair has been in an opposition party, Jean Charest’s Quebec Liberals, that fought its way to government. He is an effective interrogator of witnesses in parliamentary committees, a skill he should keep using. He’s smart and hungry.

For now, he’s more a danger to Bob Rae than to Stephen Harper.

Some of my colleagues have been tut-tutting Mulcair for reading from notes in his victory speech at the NDP convention and in his first performances in the House of Commons. Here in the Parliamentary press gallery, we like our political leaders spontaneous. It’s why so many of us thought Michael Ignatieff’s town-hall free-association sessions were the highlight of the 2011 election. It helps explain why apparently nobody in 30 years has ever taken Bob Rae aside and said, “Bob? Edit.”

What people in my line of work hate to admit is that what a leader says is more important than how he says it. As soon as he got back to the Commons, Mulcair made a beeline toward economic uncertainty. “Mr. Speaker, since the Conservatives took office, Canada has lost hundreds of thousands of good jobs in the manufacturing sector,” he said. And then: “The Conservatives are saddling future generations with the biggest environmental, economic and social debt in our history. They are gutting the manufacturing sector and destabilizing the balanced economy that we have built up since the Second World War.”

This is so far from the lint-picking self-obsession that characterizes much of current parliamentary debate as to be positively bracing. Following Mulcair, a chastened Rae attempted a me-too line of questioning on the same topics at a louder volume. But his party has pursued a more esoteric line of argument—essentially, that the Harper Conservatives are naughty flouters of proper parliamentary procedure—through a decade of diminishing electoral returns.

After that first QP, Mulcair told reporters he plans to keep focusing on “the failure of the Conservatives to apply basic rules of sustainable development.” Mulcair’s line of attack is all about the Conservatives’ zeal for developing and exporting natural resources, which, handily, your humble columnist has been writing about for three months. “That’s driven up the value of the Canadian dollar, made it more difficult to export our own goods,” Mulcair said.

There is a very large voter market in this country for Canadians who don’t like the Harper record on oil, the environment, and the fate of Canadian heavy manufacturing. One label for that market could be “people who haven’t been voting Conservative.” Those voters have been switching allegiances as they look for a way to stop Harper. In 2011, more than 1.5 million of them left the Liberals, Bloc Québécois and Green party to vote NDP.

It’s an open question whether the NDP can hold those votes. Mulcair gives it a shot at succeeding. The full-year head start he has over a future Liberal leader helps too. The Liberals will probably indulge several months of procedural inanity to transform Bob Rae from Windy Improvising Interim Leader into Windy Improvising Permanent Leader a few months earlier than originally planned. Mulcair is no Happy Warrior Jack Layton, but seriously, neither is Rae. The Liberals need to worry.

But there is another big vote market in the country, which we can call “people who have been voting Conservative.” They will see little in Mulcair to make them change their minds.

The debate Mulcair wants is about economic interest, and millions of Canadians have a stake in the growing resource economy. The fights he wants, over free trade, serious carbon-pricing schemes, and the wisdom of support for fading companies over rising ones have been fought too many times. We know how the fight usually ends.

When Mulcair was sitting at the cabinet table, Charest’s Quebec government made profit maximization the main goal of the Caisse de dépot, Quebec’s public sector pension fund. Today the Caisse holds $5 billion in shares in Alberta oil sands companies. That’s where the pursuit of economic interest leads these days.

There is something else, subtler, more cultural. Layton grew up at the Hudson Yacht Club, but he rode a bike, liked a beer, strummed a guitar, was comfortable at kitchen tables in working class neighbourhoods. He could compete head-on with Harper on the coveted ground of “cares about people like me.” Mulcair has the look and feel of the last few Liberal leaders. His Outremont riding has working class corners, but most of it is home to the oldest of old Montreal money.

During the NDP leadership campaign, SunTV asked candidates which record they like best. Mulcair named a recording of the Beethoven opera Fidelio. Stephen Harper likes to have the guys from Nickelback over to 24 Sussex. Given the choice, I’d take Beethoven too, but Nickelback sells more records. For four elections in a row the Conservatives have run a populist rush against elites in urban enclaves. Mulcair wants to lead the party of the Canadian worker from Outremont. He’s good, but he can’t work miracles.

The NDP will ask “tough” questions but will not resort to “antics.” “That certainly is my commitment. Our party didn’t have a reputation of being mad dogs in the House of Commons. We tended to be, I think, pretty well-controlled when it comes to the heckling that goes on. I feel that it is vitally important that the whole tone of Parliament change. I think Canadians are fed up with the kind of juvenile behaviour that we were seeing.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/i-think-canadians-are-fed-up/feed/10The enduring challenge of the opposition leaderhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-enduring-challenge-of-the-opposition-leader/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-enduring-challenge-of-the-opposition-leader/#respondMon, 03 Jan 2011 20:02:16 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=165467Bruce Anderson sees little political advantage to be found for Michael Ignatieff in the economy.To move the polls, the Liberal leader needs to be more viscerally connected to both …

]]>Bruce Anderson sees little political advantage to be found for Michael Ignatieff in the economy.

To move the polls, the Liberal leader needs to be more viscerally connected to both the deepest frustrations and the most stirring aspirations of a broad middle class. As simple as it seems to make a “we should be doing better” case, it is increasingly falling on “we could be doing worse” ears.

To create desperately needed forward momentum, Mr. Ignatieff needs to hammer away at other, weaker flanks of the Harper Conservatives. And, because that alone may not be enough, he needs to convince Canadians to help him achieve something bigger and more inspiring than the agenda they have been seeing from the Conservatives.

In case you didn’t notice and thus neglected to buy him a present, Mr. Ignatieff officially surpassed Stephane Dion in tenure as leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition last month. He has now served 755 days (just more than two years) in the thankless job.

For the sake of comparison, Stephen Harper spent 1,286 days (three and a half years) as opposition leader before becoming prime minister, while Jean Chretien served 1,039 days (a little more than two years and ten months). Wilfrid Laurier and Robert Borden went more than nine and ten years respectively before becoming prime minister. Robert Stanfield spent nine years on the other side of the House without ever winning the top spot.

Some leaders rule with an iron fist inside a velvet glove. Stephen Harper rules with the mask from the Scream movies.

Like many Canadians, I love being terrified of people and issues—it’s way easier than making the effort to understand them. But Harper wants us to be afraid of so much stuff that it can be hard to keep track. Here’s a useful primer of things the PM wants us to fear:

A coalition government. Check your trousers, Canada. Are they soiled? If not, Stephen Harper would like a word with you about a potential Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois coalition. If this trio were to rule, the economy would collapse, the streets of our land would run red with the blood of the innocent and John Baird would lose his chauffeur. Clearly, under such a horrifying scenario, the sweet relief of death could not come too soon for the despairing people of Canada.

Harper has trained his ministers to warn voters that opposition politicians are, as Jim Flaherty recently put it, obsessive in their pursuit of “power, power, power.” Whereas Harper himself eschews power in all its forms and leaves all critical decisions to the Hogwarts Sorting Hat.

The Harper bottom line is this: co-operation is for Communists and beach volleyballers. If our politicians started genuinely working together, what would be next? Civility? Progress? It’s all too frightening to even imagine. That’s why every time we get closer to a coalition government, Harper prorogues Parliament. For you, Canada. All for you.

Tamils. When people show up unannounced at our borders, there’s usually an orderly process through which their claims are fairly considered. But seafaring Tamils? We must fear them because they represent a “security concern” and may possibly be linked to terrorism perhaps. Rest assured, this has nothing to do with being opportunistic or xenophobic. Stephen Harper is totally fine with refugees—but do they always have to come from lands that are so troubled? Where are your yachts filled with refugees, Monaco?

Russians. Whenever George W. Bush needed a boost in the polls, he raised his country’s threat level. When Stephen Harper needed to justify buying expensive new fighter aircrafts, he warned that the Russians have been coming close to getting near to almost thinking about approaching the vicinity-ish of our air space. Are they planning to invade Canada with a single, propeller-powered bomber? WE CAN’T BE SURE. So we must fear the Russians! They are coming for our icebergs! And only Harper can protect us with his $16 billion in jets and his moxie.

Elections. Harper insists an “unnecessary election” would derail our economic recovery. How? He can’t risk telling us! We’ll just have to take the word of the PM and his finance minister, who not only didn’t see the recession coming but also responded to it with the single most inaccurate and widely mocked economic update in the history of both Canada and math.

Census takers. They come right to your door! Sometimes after six o’clock in the evening! They ask personal questions such as how many bedrooms are in your house—because they are perverts! Be warned: if you share information with them, they will STEAL YOUR SOUL.

Toronto elites. These monocle-wearing hobnobbers are all-powerful and evidence of their influence is everywhere—in fact, one of these big-city hoity-toits even grew up to be Prime Minister (Stephen J. Harper, 2006-?). If the Toronto elite aren’t stopped, average folk will surely be forced to surrender their long guns, their virgin daughters and their inferior, grocery-store cheeses.

People who’ve lived abroad. To many Conservatives, leaving Canada is an act of adultery against one’s country (unless it’s on a parliamentary junket paid for by taxpayers, in which case: mini-bar!). Think about it: if you go out into the world, you’re likely to have your narrow views challenged. And who’s got time for that? We should all be like Harper himself, who never left the continent until he was leader of the Opposition—and only then on government trips. He’s more Canadian than the rest of us because, like a tea bag of patriotism, he has steeped in Canada for longer. That’s science.

Just think, Canada: if we begin to understand the world and its people, how can we possibly continue to blindly fear them?

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/authors/scott-feschuk/we-have-everything-to-fear/feed/41Are taxes the only way out of the deficit?http://www.macleans.ca/general/we-will-pay-for-this-one-way-or-another/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/we-will-pay-for-this-one-way-or-another/#commentsTue, 26 Jan 2010 15:51:10 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=102864ANDREW COYNE: The government has a choice. It can either break its promise not to raise taxes. Or it can break its promise not to cut transfers.

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The Great and the Good have come down from on high, and delivered their decree: there shall be tax hikes. The deficit that was once our friend is now our enemy, no longer “stimulative” but “structural.” The spending spree that gave us that deficit cannot be reversed, or not altogether. If the deficit is to be slain, it must therefore be by raising taxes. Thus sayeth the elders, including former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, two former deputy ministers of finance, and Jeffrey Simpson.

Well, maybe. What is certainly true is that the fiscal forecast, once an unbroken line of surpluses as far as the eye could see, has darkened considerably. Not only is the deficit headed for $56 billion this fiscal year, but it will still exceed $11 billion even four years from now. And that’s on the government’s cheery numbers. The parliamentary budget officer forecasts the 2014 deficit at $19 billion—after four years of (assumed) steady economic growth. Just in time for the next recession to blow it sky-high again.

So clearly we have a problem on our hands. But is it true that fresh taxes are the only remedy? Are government ministers—and, to be fair, the Opposition leader—dissembling when they claim to be able to balance the budget without such harsh measures? Are they, as the Great and the Good suggest, failing the test of leadership? Should that be the new red badge of courage—a politician’s willingness to raise taxes?

It’s worth remembering, by way of answer, how we got here. The G and G like to cite the effect of the Conservatives’ cut of two percentage points off the GST, and certainly that was and remains a costly blunder. If taxes were to be cut, far better to cut income taxes, which the Tories have barely touched. (On the plus side, it may have made it easier for Ontario and B.C. to contemplate harmonizing their own sales taxes with the GST.)

But with or without the GST cut, we’d still be in surplus—yes, even today—had the last two governments shown the slightest discipline in spending. Had the Liberals, after 2000, held spending growth to a rate sufficient to cover increases in population and inflation—that is, had they held spending constant in real per capita terms—they would have left the Tories with a budget of $148 billion in fiscal 2006, instead of the $175 billion it turned out to be. Had the Tories done the same, we’d be spending $169 billion in the current fiscal year—not $242 billion. In other words, the federal government is today spending nearly 50 per cent more real dollars per citizen than it did a decade ago. That’s why we’re in this mess.

Well, water under the bridge, you may say. They’ve spent the money, and now we’re stuck with the bill. But the good news is that even today, even after the explosive growth in spending of the last 10 years, we can still balance the budget by 2014, without raising taxes. The bad news—well, we’ll get to the bad news in a minute.

The government’s September fiscal statement shows annual revenues growing by nearly a third between now and then, from $217 billion to $285 billion: roughly seven per cent per year. Assume that’s overly optimistic, and pencil in $276 billion in revenues for fiscal 2014 instead. To balance the budget in that year, assuming interest costs of $42 billion, will mean holding program spending to $234 billion.

That sounds tough. It’s roughly $20 billion less than the government currently projects. But it’s still about $28 billion more than it spent last year, before the massive “stimulus” binge. As it happens, that works out to holding government spending level, adjusting for population and inflation growth: not using 2000 as the benchmark, as I did before, but 2009. That doesn’t sound impossible.

Or it wouldn’t, had not the government added two further conditions to its “no tax hikes” pledge: that it would make no cuts in transfers to provinces, or to persons (notably old age pensions and employment insurance). But these make up more than half the budget, and are slated to grow by 13.6 per cent over the next four years. To keep overall spending to our targeted $234 billion in 2014 would require cutting the whole $20 billion out of the rest of the budget: about one dollar in six.

Is that possible? Certainly not without a majority government, and probably not even then. So, in the short term, the government has a choice. It can either break its promise not to raise taxes, as the G and G have urged it should do. Or it can break its promise not to cut transfers, as, well, Terry Corcoran has suggested. The one thing it cannot do, if it has any intention of bringing the books back into balance by then, is sit tight, make a few cuts around the edges, and hope for a miracle. Which, of course, is precisely the policy course it is on.

Oh, and the bad news I promised you? Balancing the budget four years from now is the easy part. From here on in, the fiscal choices are only going to get harder. The retirement of the baby boomers over the next several decades will mean astronomic increases in costs, notably for health care, with relatively fewer people of working age to pay them. The C.D. Howe Institute’s Bill Robson estimates this represents a total unfunded liability in excess of $2 trillion.

Raise taxes, or cut spending. You think the debate is fierce now? We have not yet begun to fight.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/we-will-pay-for-this-one-way-or-another/feed/48… Same as the old (Liberal) bosshttp://www.macleans.ca/general/same-as-the-old-liberal-boss/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/same-as-the-old-liberal-boss/#commentsMon, 20 Apr 2009 14:53:53 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=51135Despite their new leader’s big talk about the Liberal caucus ceasing to sit on its hands while the Tories steamroll parliament, Ignatieff’s people aren’t exactly fulfilling their constitutionally-defined role of…

]]>Despite their new leader’s big talk about the Liberal caucus ceasing to sit on its hands while the Tories steamroll parliament, Ignatieff’s people aren’t exactly fulfilling their constitutionally-defined role of officially opposing the government of the day. As Glen McGregor reports today, this government-in-waiting seems to be still waiting for something to object to:

OTTAWA — Despite leader Michael Ignatieff’s vow that his party would no longer sit on its hands during votes in Parliament, Liberal MPs have missed three times as many votes in the House of Commons as Conservative members so far this year.

The average Liberal MP did not participate in about 12 per cent of the recorded votes on bills and motions in the House of Commons since the parliamentary session began in January, compared to Tory MPs, who on average skipped four per cent, a Citizen analysis shows.

The Liberals posted the worst record for voting of the four parties in the House, standing to be counted fewer times on average than even Bloc Québécois MPs.

And when Liberal MPs did show up, they voted the same way as the Conservatives 79 per cent of the time.